Bottles, rocks fly at Lembhard rally in Newburgh

Gathering wraps up with violence

CITY OF NEWBURGH — An event that began with calls for voting drives and political action ended in flying bottles and rocks. On Monday, on what would have been his 23rd birthday, Michael Lembhard's relatives had gathered nearly 100 people — including activists, politicians and the families of other men killed durin...

CITY OF NEWBURGH — An event that began with calls for voting drives and political action ended in flying bottles and rocks. On Monday, on what would have been his 23rd birthday, Michael Lembhard's relatives had gathered nearly 100 people — including activists, politicians and the families of other men killed during police confrontations in New York and New Jersey — in a parking lot across from where Lembhard was killed by cops in March.

For three hours, speakers called for reform of law enforcement, mostly through political pressure. Organizers called it the People's Unity Rally.

The night turned wild shortly after 9 p.m., when police reported people in the crowd were throwing rocks and bottles at patrol cars. About 20 officers from the city and Towns of Newburgh and New Windsor responded, along with Orange County sheriff's deputies.

As cops filled the lot, a couple of Lembhard's brothers shouted "Let's fight!" over and over as other relatives tried to calm them. Several cops appeared to have taken a dose of pepper spray or tear gas from the crowd, and other police limped after being hit in the shins with rocks.

Lembhard was killed March 7 in a confrontation with city cops. An Orange County grand jury found the shooting was justified, but Lembhard's family disputes police accounts of that night.

Earlier Monday, a former congresswoman from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, urged Newburgh residents to band together and vote in new leaders.

"The City of Newburgh cannot afford to be divided," McKinney said. "The people are being preyed upon."

Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. was among those who spoke. His father, a 68-year-old former Marine, was killed in November after police responded to a medical call at his home in White Plains.

Even before Monday's situation, Mayor Judy Kennedy had called a news conference with Assemblyman Frank Skartados and police Chief Michael Ferrara for Tuesday to discuss a Saturday incident in which, police say, a cop was punched in the back of the head after wading into a crowd of 60 people to stop a man from hitting a woman.

"We have such a culture of violence," Kennedy said Monday. "It makes me ill."

Continued protests and accusations, set against the backdrop of City Council requests for investigation of police policies, have outraged Newburgh cops. The Police Benevolent Association issued a vote of "no confidence" in the council Aug. 14, claiming lack of support from city leaders puts them in greater danger.

On Monday, officers and several of Lembhard's family members tried to calm crowds as the occasional rock flew. An off-duty state trooper who lives in the neighborhood was in the lot before telling Lembhard's sister to "go the (expletive) home." She hurled a bottle that hit him in the arm as he walked away.